Health authorities are once again warning households with small children not to keep turtles as pets, after a four-week-old baby died earlier this year in the U.S.
The baby was rushed to a Florida emergency room at the end of February with fever and septic shock. She died on March 1 despite treatment with antibiotics. Tests on bacteria taken from the baby showed it matched a strain found in a turtle given to the infant's family by a friend. The strain was Salmonella serotype Pomona.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it knows of at least 15 other children infected with similar strains of Salmonella in 2006 and 2007 and found 80 per cent of them had direct or indirect contact with a turtle in the week before they became ill.
"These cases illustrate that small turtles remain a source of human Salmonella infections," the CDC said in a statement Thursday.
Turtles and other reptiles are considered reservoirs of Salmonella and have long been a recognized source of salmonella infection in humans. Salmonella infections in children can be severe and can result in death.
Small turtles pose a particular danger to young children because the turtles are not perceived as health hazards and can be handled like toys.
Most turtles regularly carry Salmonella and shed the bacteria intermittently in their feces. Turtles not shedding Salmonella under normal circumstances have been shown to actively shed the bacteria when stressed. Moreover, water in turtle bowls or aquariums can amplify any Salmonella shed by turtles, the CDC says.
"For these reasons, all turtles, regardless of carapace size, should be handled as though they are infected with Salmonella," the CDC says.
According to Health Canada, approximately 6,000 to 12,000 cases of Salmonella infection are reported each year in this country. Because many milder cases are not diagnosed or reported, the actual number of infections is estimated to be many times more.
The agency recommends that reptiles, including turtles, are not appropriate pets for children and should not be kept in the same house as an infant.
In the U.S., the federal "Four-Inch Law" was enacted in 1975, forbidding the sale of turtles with a carapace length of less than four 4 inches (10 cm). In 1980, the CDC estimated that the 1975 prohibition had prevented an estimated 100,000 cases of turtle-associated salmonellosis in children aged one to nine years in 1976.
